


Origin Story

by messageredacted



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman Begins (2005), Dark Knight (2008)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 12:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His face feels unfamiliar to him, like the man in the alley cut the whole thing off and the surgeons have given him an ill-fitting replacement. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Origin Story

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written 5 November 2009.

His mother screams when the necklace snaps, pearls scattering like buckshot. He drops to his knees, scrambling to catch them before they roll into the gutter, and it’s a stupid move, he knows it is. It’s just a necklace and there are _more important things_ —

“Go on, _run_.”

He glances up to see the man looking down at him with a grin, and in the back of his head he realizes his mother had been screaming at him, and he should run, but the pearls— And his father is on the ground, slumped over his mother, and they are both dead, both smiling, and the man’s turning to him with the knife.

“Get away from them!” he shouts, shoving pearls into his pockets, pushing himself backwards away from the man’s reach. It is, he knows, too late for that, but he feels as if this entire situation is spinning away from him at double time. Half a heartbeat ago, they were stepping out of the convention center. An eye blink before that, they were watching the circus and he’s always had this _irrational fear of clowns—_

The man takes two big steps toward him, almost comical, like it’s all a joke. He turns and runs and a hand closes around the collar of his coat, jerking him backwards. He closes his eyes, biting his tongue, and behind his eyelids he sees his mother’s throat, his father’s throat, and he wonders how bad it’s going to hurt.

“Cheer up, sweetie,” the man whispers, the tip of the knife jabbing into his cheek. “I don’t kill kids.” The knife pulls hard and the man lets out a breath like a sigh.

Someone shouts and footsteps slap down the alley. The man lets go of him and runs. Jack opens his eyes and puts his hands to his face, feeling the blood running down his chin and neck. The pearls chatter in his pocket when he lifts his arm. There is no pain—not yet—not for a while—and when he puts his fingers to his cheeks there are too many teeth.

##

“We caught the guy,” the police officer is saying to him a second later, and they’re in the hospital. There are no reporters here, no television crews, no marching bands. The Commissioner has not roused himself from City Hall to come in for a photo op. The hospital moves with a slow and steady early evening pace. It seems like there should be more of an uproar when the world ends.

Jack is drugged now, anyway. They have taped gauze to his face. The plastic surgeon on call had stitched him up with small Xs of black thread. His face feels unfamiliar to him, like the man in the alley cut the whole thing off and the surgeons have given him an ill-fitting replacement.

The police officer, who introduced himself as Jim, is looking at him like you’d look at a stray cat, like he’s mentally weighing the odds of whether Jack is going to run into traffic if left on his own. “It’s going to be okay,” he says, but neither of them believes it.

##

It’s a minute and a half after that and Jack is eighteen years old, packing his hand-me-down Ford station wagon for college. Princeton is only an hour’s drive away but Barbara is acting like he’s going across the country, checking and re-checking the list of things he needs.

“Don’t drink too much,” she tells him. “Try to eat vegetables at least once a week. Don’t leave your clothes in the washing machine too long or they’ll start to smell. Don’t skip too many classes.”

Jim pulls him in for a hug. “College isn’t just about studying,” he says to Jack in a low voice, giving him a wink. “Try to have some fun while you’re there.”

Jack smiles at them because he knows that’s what they want. His face has been numb since the man sliced it up—nerve damage, the doctors say—and smiling makes him feel like his face is made out of clay, but he has always seen how Jim and Barbara light up when he smiles, and he wants them to be happy.

Barbie latches onto his leg. “When will you come home?” she asks, looking up at him. She’s another stray that Jim took in, although at least she’s family. Jack still wonders sometimes why Jim went through all the trouble of adopting him when he must encounter so many kids like him in his job. You can’t save everyone, but Jack is grateful that Jim tried to save him.

“As soon as I can,” Jack says, tousling her hair.

##

And he does. He comes home the first weekend, and then every other week after that, ostensibly to save money on laundry, but also because this family is his bridge to normalcy. They understand his sometimes weird sense of humor. They don’t get freaked out by his screaming nightmares. They don’t notice his scars.

He’s lucky that he’s home when Jim tells him about Joe Chill, about how he might get to walk in exchange for giving the courts information about Carmine Falcone. He can only imagine how dangerous it would have been to drive home in the blind rage that grips him now. It’s all he can do to walk into his bedroom and shut the door. He sits on the edge of his bed, his whole body paralyzed with more anger than he has ever felt in his life.

He thinks about knives. He thinks about how he might get a knife through the metal detectors in the courtroom and how he might get close enough to Chill to cut his fucking throat. No, it can’t be quick—he wants Chill to suffer, to know it was him. He thinks about how many times he can stab Chill before the police pull him off.

Jim comes in later and sits next to him on the bed and puts his palm against Jack’s forehead as if feeling for a fever. Jack closes his eyes. Jim’s palm is cool. It is comfortable.

“It’s okay to hate him, son,” Jim says softly, and Jack cries.

##

It can’t be quick.

Jack buys a knife in a pawn shop. It’s one of those vicious looking knives that don’t have any other purpose than causing maximum damage, with a double blade and a hooked tip and a serrated edge. He might only get a couple good stabs in but he’s going to make sure they count.

He doesn’t even need to get it past the metal detectors. All he needs to do is wait out by the front entrance where they’ll take Chill after the trial. He wears a winter coat and a scarf and waits, his hand in his pocket wrapped around the handle of the knife. There are a few other people loitering around, including some press, but he ignores them all and tries to look casual.

He knows Chill is approaching when the press perks up. Jack turns and there is the man, looking just like he did two minutes ago in the alley. Chill sees him too and even from fifty feet away their eyes lock. The man starts to smile, his eyes lighting up. He recognizes Jack. He takes two exaggerated steps forward like he expects Jack to run way.

Jack tightens his fingers on the knife handle and straightens up, taking a deep breath. Chill’s eyes are on his as if he knows exactly what is in Jack’s pocket. As if he’s daring Jack to do it. As if he thinks this is all a joke.

The reporters are yelling questions. One, a blond, pushes forward. Her words don’t register on Jack’s ears. A car backfires twice and Chill looks away from Jack, his expression going distant and confused. He looks at the reporter.

Jack steps forward— _don’t look away from me you bastard, we’re not done yet_ —and Chill is on the ground, and everyone is shouting, and the police are swarming like bees, and Jack actually looks down at his hands and thinks, did I already do it? Did I miss it?

Is it over already?

##

“Did you think we wouldn’t care?” Jim shouts at him later, his face red and angry in a way that Jack has rarely seen it. “God, Jack, did you think we would just—” He puts a hand to his mouth, wordless, shaking his head.

“It wasn’t about you,” Jack says woodenly, the knife bare in his hand. Jim looks at it and then away and his look of muted horror is as sharp as a slap. Jack belatedly puts the knife back in his pocket. It hadn’t occurred to him _not_ to tell Jim about what he had planned.

“We would have lost you,” Jim says, the anger draining from him and leaving grief behind. “You’re my son. I don’t know how I could have managed.”

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world,” Jack says mutinously, swallowing his guilt. Jim raises his eyes and looks at him as if seeing him for the first time.

“If you want justice, maybe you should join the police,” Jim says quietly.

Jack lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “The police have nothing to do with justice in Gotham.”

Jim winces. “I try, Jack. But there’s only one of me.”

And if Jack becomes a cop, there will only be two of them. The problem about being a cop, especially being a good cop, is that there are _rules_. There are _laws_. There is _reasonable doubt_.

There has to be another way.

##

Fast forward.

“Falcone’s never going down,” Rachel says.

It’s after hours in the district attorney’s office. Jack works here now. First there was Princeton undergrad, then Harvard law, then passing the bar, and now he’s here in the office eating take-out soft serve. Rachel would be distractingly gorgeous if he noticed that sort of thing, but as it is she has become a good friend of his.

“No one’s going to go against him,” Jack replies, scraping his spoon along the bottom of the cardboard cup. “Not in Gotham.”

The television flickers, muted, in the background. The news is covering some rich kid’s miraculous return after apparently going missing seven years ago. It looks like a publicity stunt but it had put Rachel into enough of a maudlin mood that Jack had offered to buy the ice cream this week, even though it’s her turn.

“It’s Crane.” Rachel glares into her ice cream. “Any time Falcone needs someone to walk, he just has Crane pronounce them unfit. I can’t get anyone to contradict him. Finch won’t even let me try.” The corners of her lips pull down. Her on-again, off-again relationship with the D.A. is in an off-phase at the moment.

“So we focus on Crane.”

Rachel looks up at him and then smirks. “What, prove that he’s working for Falcone? I’ve tried. He covers his tracks, and short of catching him in the act, I don’t know how to bring him down.”

“What do you think Crane is getting out of the deal?” Jack asks his ice cream.

Rachel hesitates, her brow furrowing. “I don’t know. Money? He doesn’t seem the type. I don’t think he’s getting a cut of Falcone’s drugs, either, but Falcone can get all sorts of things past customs.” She smiles. “Are you going to go find out?”

He doesn’t answer. She stares at him for a moment, looking fond.

“You’re so serious, Jack.” When he glances up at her, surprised, she lowers her chin and grins at him. “You should smile more.”

##

He keeps the mask in his pocket and just wraps a scarf around his face when he takes the monorail to the Narrows. A baseball cap, pulled low, shadows his eyes. It’s only mid-autumn and isn’t cold enough for scarves yet but no one really pays much attention to him. This far into the Narrows, everyone knows how to mind their own business.

It’s common knowledge that Falcone gets shipments of drugs at the docks, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Jack closes his fist around the knife in his pocket and feels something in his chest relax as the monorail slows down. He’s been waiting for this, and he’s not going to make a mistake.

It’s not until he reaches the docks, slipping quietly amongst the shipping containers, that he begins to have second thoughts. Five of Falcone’s men are loading the back of a truck, and at least five more are patrolling the area, armed to the teeth. Falcone himself is sitting in a car idling nearby, and Jack is pretty sure he just saw Jim’s partner Flass duck inside.

He pulls off the baseball cap and the scarf and takes the mask out of his pocket. It’s a floppy latex thing that he bought a couple weeks ago—a red nose, big droopy eyes and a blue five o’clock shadow. He doesn’t know why he chose the clown of all the masks he could have picked, but he doesn’t think about it too hard. He pulls it on.

The mask smells like latex and his breath immediately condenses on the inside. He peers out through the eyeholes, looking down the docks toward the truck. Five loading the truck, but only one or two are going at a time to the shipping container. The others on patrol are clustered near Falcone’s car. He can do this.

The ground is wet from autumn rain. Jack retreats and circles all the way around the lot, moving silently in between the shipping containers to the one the men have been unloading. When one of the men turns away from the container with a box in his arms, Jack slips inside.

He opens a box with his knife and pulls it open, working fast. There are stuffed animals inside, rabbits and bears. He pulls out a rabbit and digs into it with the knife and white powder spills over his knuckles. What a surprise.

Footsteps scrape up the pavement and Jack slinks back into the shadows behind a row of boxes. His breath echoes loudly inside the mask and condensation runs down his chin. His heart beats too fast in his throat.

A man leans in, reaching for another box. Jack doesn’t hesitate. He steps forward and flings the white powder into the man’s face, then grabs the front of his shirt and hauls him inside when the man sputters. Jack pulls a pair of handcuffs from his pocket—liberated from Jim—and shoves the man to the ground, wrenching his arms behind his back and cuffing him. Was that five seconds, six? He squeezes out the door of the shipping crate and ducks down a side path as more footsteps slowly approach.

“Hey, Steiss,” a man’s voice calls carefully. They must have heard something. Jack backs up and his foot hits a pile of wood and metal ties. He squats down and picks up a piece of the wood, shoving his knife into the leather sheath in his pocket. He takes two steps forward.

Something catches him around the waist and lifts and suddenly the ground is ten feet under him, twenty feet, and his breath goes out in a surprised yelp. He bucks his head back and feels it connect with something hard—not flesh.

“The fuck—” he gasps, twisting his head around. He catches a glimpse of a black mask and pointy ears and a pale square jaw. They’re over the level of the shipping containers now and Jack can see the thin cable attaching them to the crane overhead, pulling them steadily up. The water of the bay stretches black and featureless to their right. Fabric cracks and swirls around them in the wind.

They come to a stop, swaying, a hundred feet off the ground. The arm around his waist has iron strength underneath its hard Kevlar gauntlet. Jack lets go of the piece of wood and watches it turn as it falls, clanging off the top of a shipping container and spinning off into splinters. The men down there look up at them warily, then go back to work.

“Who are you?” Jack chokes out, his voice muffled by the mask. The man doesn’t answer.

The arm around his waist lets go.

Jack lets out a scream as he starts to fall. He flails, grabbing at anything within reach. His fingers catch on that black fabric, then slip free. He’s dropping and his mind is already arrowing ahead of him, focused on the way that piece of wood shattered when it hit the top of the shipping container, but then at the last possible second his fingers close around the man’s ankle and grip tight. He pulls up short, his shoulder wrenching painfully.

His mask has twisted around and the eyeholes are somewhere at the back of his head. Jack gropes for it, tugging it back into place. How do people wear these fucking things? It’s a wonder more children don’t wander off into traffic while trick-or-treating. He pulls the eyeholes back in front of his eyes and then tilts his head back, looking up at the man over him.

The man kicks his leg, sending Jack swinging. He tightens his grip on the ankle, wrapping his other hand around it as well, which makes the mask bunch up again and the eyeholes skew to the left.

Jack twists his face around, trying to pull the mask back into place without using his hands, and it’s while he’s doing that that he catches a glimpse of the grappling gun hooked in the man’s belt. That’s where the cable is coming from that’s tying them to the crane overhead. It looks securely fastened to the man’s belt, but if he can get to it—

Jack slides his right hand up the man’s leg and gets a good grip on his calf, then hoists himself up, hand over hand. The man kicks again and then fumbles around with something on his gauntlet.

Hooked metal barbs shoot out from the gauntlet. One hits Jack’s shoulder, digging into the muscle. Another slices through the mask and glances off his cheekbone, narrowly missing his eye. A third sings off into mid air. Jack flinches, his grip slipping. He slides down to the man’s ankle again.

Far below him, a truck engine starts up. Shit. Falcone’s men are done with the shipment. They’re going to get away and this entire evening is going to be for nothing. Jack hoists himself up again an inch at a time. When he gets a good grip on the man’s knee, he lifts his legs and wraps them around the man’s ankle, then swings his left arm up. His fingers touch the grappling gun and he finds the button.

The two of them drop like rocks. The man over him lets out a snarled curse and claws at Jack’s hand. Jack hangs on tenaciously, the wind whistling through the eyeholes of his mask.

The man slams the heel of his hand into Jack’s fingers and Jack finally lets go. The man’s hand closes around the grappling gun and they come to a sudden, bone-shaking stop. Gravity increases a thousand-fold around Jack and he hangs on with everything he has as they bounce like bungee jumpers at the end of the cable. On the second bounce, his legs slip free of the man’s ankle.

The drop is deceptively short. Jack lands flat on his back on top of a shipping crate that must have only been five feet below him. The shock of hitting something so soon paralyzes him, and for a second he stares up at the blue-black sky overhead and wonders if he is in pieces like that length of wood.

Reality catches up with him. He lifts his arms and stares at his hands. Still attached. He rolls over onto his side, flexing his knees. Something drops like a stone onto the other end of the shipping container and he jerks his head up.

The man is standing there, and now that Jack has some distance he can see that the man is dressed like a bat, his cape flapping around him.

Jack rolls over again and drops over the side of the shipping container onto the edge of the one below it. The shipping containers are stacked three high here. Jack slides over the edge of the next one and barely catches himself on the ledge before he drops again, hitting the cement hard. His knees rattle.

There is a flutter of fabric and Jack hears the man land neatly on the cement behind him. Jack pops to his feet and falls into a full-out sprint.

The truck and Falcone’s men are long gone. The shipping container full of stuffed animals is empty. Jack makes it nearly to the water’s edge before the man tackles him from behind and they hit the ground and skid.

The man punches him in the face once and then wraps the cord of the grappling gun around his neck, pulling it tight. Jack digs his fingers into the neck of his mask, trying to pull at the cable.

It is surreal, the two of them rolling on the ground under the hanging yellow lights of the docks, silent except for Jack’s whistling breaths for air. The man has dark, glittering eyes that are focused intently on his own, unblinking.

Jack lets go of the cable and lets his hand drop. The man’s mouth is pressed in a flat line as if he isn’t particularly enjoying this but doesn’t really hate it enough to stop. Black spots are swarming around the lights overhead and it takes Jack a second to realize that it’s his vision that’s going and not a swarm of bats circling the lights.

He brings his arm up with all the force he can muster and the knife buries itself an inch into the flesh under the man’s chin before it catches on bone. The man’s eyes go wide and he jerks backward, the cable going slack. Blood runs down the knife and down Jack’s palm. Jack sucks in air and then kicks the man off him, pulling the knife free. He gets to his feet, staggers sideways, and then starts to run again, shaking his head to free it from the buzzing darkness.

He runs along the edge of the water, not entirely sure where he’s headed. Up ahead are a couple heavy-duty spotlights meant for late night loading at the docks. Jack reaches the first one before he hears footsteps behind him again. He catches himself on the front of it with both hands to stop his forward momentum, still feeling drunk from the lack of oxygen. His hands leave bloody handprints. He slaps blindly at the on switch.

This close, it’s like turning on the sun. His mask glows and he can see the bloodstains on the inside from the shallow cut on his cheek. The footsteps behind him falter and he turns to see the man fling up an arm to cover his eyes. The man’s other hand tosses a canister.

Jack rears back, thinking _grenade_ , but then smoke spews from the canister and he realizes it’s tear gas, which is almost as bad. The smoke boils around him, somehow finding its way into his mask. He coughs and holds his breath, his head spinning, and stumbles backward. He catches himself on the spotlight, his blood-slick hand smearing across the surface, then pushes off of it, forcing his feet to move. The light tips back, the spotlight spinning on its axis. If he can get out of this cloud of gas, maybe he can get away from—

The ground disappears again.

This time he falls down instead of up and it isn’t until he hits the water that he realizes what he did. The bay closes over his head. He thrashes, trying to find the surface again. Everything is black in every direction and he’s spinning in the current. He yanks the mask off his head and lets out a stream of bubbles. They float up past his right shoulder and he turns in that direction.

He bursts through the surface and sucks in air, shaking water from his eyes. The docks are fifty feet away and rapidly receding. He can see a bat-shaped figure on the edge of the docks, looking down into the water, but the man doesn’t look like he’s going to pursue.

Jack reaches up and rubs at his face, feeling the sting of the cut in his cheek. His face feels strange and he realizes suddenly that he’s grinning—he’s been grinning this whole time underneath the mask. His face feels new and raw and unfamiliar. He touches it in wonder.

The spotlight shines up against the bulky clouds, a weirdly shaped image. Jack remembers the bloodstains that he left on the thing. From here, it seems that the circle of light has two dark eyeholes and one wide slash of a mouth.

##

“Jack, what happened?” Rachel straightens up from her desk when she catches sight of him the next morning, a look of dismay crossing her face.

Jack smiles ruefully, his fingers reaching up to ghost over the bruise and bandaged cut on his cheek. “I was mugged,” he says, putting his briefcase down on his own desk.

“Oh my God!” Rachel comes around her desk and reaches out to him, her eyes studying the bruise. “Did you call the police?”

“Yes. It’s fine.” He waves her hand away. “I already canceled my credit cards. I’ll live.”

“Did you see a doctor?” Rachel lets her hand drop and takes a step back, biting her lip.

“It’s nothing.” He gives her a half smile. “They can’t make me uglier.”

“Oh, Jack.” Rachel winces. “Don’t say that.” She touches his shoulder briefly and then turns back to her desk. “Be more careful.”

“I will.” He drops down at his desk and opens his briefcase, staring blankly inside.

Rachel leans over and turns up the television set, glancing towards Finch’s office, then shoots a glance at Jack. He rolls his chair over to her desk.

“I was nearly mugged too,” she says quietly.

He straightens up. “What? Are you okay? What happened?”

She waves a hand to dismiss his concerns. “I’m fine. I said ‘nearly.’ I was—I was taking the monorail home and these two guys followed me and tried to surround me. I had my taser but I didn’t even get to use it before this man—well.” She glances towards Finch’s door again and lowers her voice even more. “He was dressed as a bat. He scared the men off. He told me Falcone had sent them to kill me because I was causing too much trouble.”

Jack stares at her, his face frozen. “Dressed as a bat?”

She hesitates, then smirks. “My reaction was more, ‘He sent them to kill me?’ But yes, he was dressed as a bat. I don’t know.”

“Did he say who he was?”

She shakes her head. “He said he didn’t approve of murdering women, but he warned me to leave Falcone and Crane alone. He said maybe next time he wouldn’t be around to stop them.”

Jack leans back in his chair, hearing it creak. “Will you?”

“Leave them alone? Are you kidding me?” Rachel’s voice raises giddily. “He told me to leave Falcone _and Crane_ alone. We’re obviously on the right track. And seriously, Falcone and Crane can sneak around all they want but giant bat men in Gotham aren’t exactly unobtrusive. Other people must have seen him around.”

Her enthusiasm makes Jack smiles. Finch comes out of his office heading for the coffee pot. Jack rolls his chair back to his desk.

The television talks loudly about Wayne Enterprises going public, along with some chatter of the handsome Wayne heir’s return from the dead and that unspeakably scandalous family tragedy twenty-two years ago, a topic that has been done to death over the last couple days.

“He’s a friend of yours, right?” Finch asks, pausing by the television with a cup of coffee.

“Yes,” Rachel says in a deceptively casual tone of voice. Jack shuffles papers on his desk, trying not to get involved.

“You seen him yet since he got back?” Finch glances over at her, his eyes suspicious.

“I’m going to his birthday party in two days,” Rachel says with a smile. Finch stands with his coffee a second longer, then retreats to his office.

##

“Nothing about a bat, I’m afraid,” Jim says that night after dinner. Jack stops by sometimes on Friday nights, which may be indicative of how anemic his social life is but Jack likes to think it’s because he’s close to his family.

“Be careful, Jack. I know you want to bring down Falcone but he’s a vicious man. He won’t hesitate to kill you or Rachel, as he’s already proven.”

“Falcone doesn’t scare me,” Jack announces, lifting his beer to his lips.

Jim gives him a long, sober glance, rolling his own beer between his palms.

“He should,” he says finally. “Look, Jack. I don’t want you to get involved in this anymore. I think this is getting bigger than any of us can handle.”

Jack frowns at him. “What do you mean?”

“Wayne Enterprises is trying to keep it quiet, but they’ve misplaced a microwave emitter. It’s meant to be used for desert warfare, and I have no clue what it might be used for in Gotham.” Jim looks down into his beer bottle, his expression flat. “This is beyond mob politics. This is edging into national security.”

##

The convenience store sells costume makeup, twice as expensive as usual because Halloween is coming up. Jack wanders the aisle, picking up greasy discs of white and black and red makeup. There’s even temporary hair dye in shockingly bright colors.

Back outside, he stands in the alley and fumbles with the packaging, pulling out the tiny foam wedge and digging it into the white makeup. He smears it over his face, caking it on thickly. He digs his thumbs into the black paint and smears it into his eye sockets, then wipes a wide streak of red across his mouth, careful to get every inch of the scars.

The stuff feels like a second skin on his face. It’s cool and smooth, softening the tingle of the nerve damage in his cheeks. His face feels like his own again, and not like a stranger’s face haphazardly tacked on. He grins.

The hair color comes in a spray can. His hair has gotten long in the last few years. He shakes it out of its knot and then bends over, his hair hanging down. He sprays the stuff through it liberally, his eyes closed.

He had traded his clothes for a set of garishly colored ones from the thrift store. Now, suitably costumed, he feels like a different person. He straightens up, shaking his head and tossing away the can of hair dye. He has work to do.

Dr. Jonathan Crane lives near the business district, an upper middle class section of Gotham. Most of the apartment buildings here have doormen, but not the tightest security.

Jack avoids the front of the apartment building, circling the block until he finds the narrow alley that leads to the fenced-in garden in back. He vaults the fence and then tries the back door of the building, which is locked. It doesn’t take long to get it open.

Crane lives on the third floor of the building. Jack takes the stairs. In the third floor hallway is a glass table with a basket of fake flowers and a painting of a landscape. On either side of the hall are doors leading to the two apartments. Jack goes to the right and gets to work on the door.

The door sighs open and Jack slips inside, wary. There isn’t any sound in the apartment, just the distant hum of the heating unit. Jack closes the door and relocks it, then moves through the apartment.

The study has shelves lined with books and a heavy wooden desk covered in papers. Jack sits down in the rolling chair and flips through the papers but nothing looks out of place. There are no manifestos detailing his plans or thank you cards from Falcone for all the help. Jack leans back in the chair and smiles a little. He hadn’t really expected it to be easy.

In the hallway, the elevator dings. Jack gets up from the desk and moves to the doorway, pulling his knife from his pocket. He stands back in the shadows and waits.

The hallway light flicks on, sending a square of yellow across the carpet of the study. Keys clang onto a table and then footsteps move towards the study. A shadow grows in the doorway.

Crane steps into the study, carrying his briefcase. Jack holds his breath as the man moves to his desk and puts down the briefcase.

Jack steps forward and hooks one of his arms around the man’s neck, yanking him backwards. His other hand brings the knife up to Crane’s chin, pressing hard to let Crane know it’s there. Crane lets out an undignified yelp of surprise.

“You’re working for Falcone,” Jack growls, keeping his voice low to disguise it. He has never come face-to-face with Crane before—he’s too low-ranking to take the man on in court because, unlike Rachel, he’s not sleeping with the boss—but he doesn’t want to take any chances. The odds are Crane has researched everyone in the D.A.’s office.

“Don’t kill me,” Crane gasps. “You can have my money.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” Jack says in disgust. “What is Falcone doing for you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking—” Crane’s denial hitches when Jack shifts the knife. “I swear—”

“You’re having him bring something in for you at the docks. Is it the drugs?”

Crane lets out a cough that could almost be a giggle. “It’s this,” he says, lifting up a spray bottle. He squirts it over his shoulder, right into Jack’s face. Jack jerks back, blinking.

Something judders in his ears—laughter—who’s laughing? Is it Crane? Crane is laughing, leaning against the desk and rubbing his neck. Jack staggers back, wiping at his face and coughing.

Shapes move around him, swirling like carnival lights. There’s a snatch of music somewhere behind him. He turns, swinging the knife, but there’s only air.

“A costume?” Crane is still laughing. “I guess it’s a fad. Want to see my mask?”

Jack reaches the doorway, although he doesn’t know how he got there. Somewhere down the hall his mother is screaming “Run, Jack!” and he does this time, although he can hear pearls clattering to the floor, chattering like teeth (too many teeth) and someone is laughing.

He hits the front door, pulls it open, and then he’s taking the stairs two at a time. Time is moving too fast again—somehow he’s outdoors, fumbling through the garden, and then he’s stumbling down the sidewalk and he doesn’t know how he scaled the garden fence. Maybe there are people staring at him but he doesn’t know why—the scars? No, something else. He touches his cheeks and his fingers come away white and greasy.

“Run, Jack!” his mother yells, and he runs again. He doesn’t know where but he runs. Someone is laughing, someone is saying “Don’t worry, sweetie, I don’t kill kids.” Someone is swinging a knife. He flinches away, covering his face with his hands.

“Jack?” someone says, and he thinks _run Jack_ but it’s a man’s voice, it’s Jim’s voice. Jim hustles him into the apartment. “Jack, what’s—”

Barbara lets out a shocked gasp. Jack twists away and barrels into Jim, who wraps arms around him tightly and pins him against the wall.

Then he’s in the bathroom, standing in the shower while Jim scrubs the makeup from his face and the color from his hair. He’s shivering even though the water is warm.

“You were here all along,” Jim is telling him. “You came home for dinner and never left, okay? You’re suffering a psychotic break.”

Jack mouths words into the water and doesn’t even know what he’s saying. Jim turns off the water and hustles him out of the tub, roughly toweling him off, rubbing his hair dry. “Call the paramedics, Barbara,” he calls into the kitchen as he starts to help Jack into clean clothes.

##

A machine clicks on.

Jack draws in a breath.

Footsteps walk slowly down the hallway.

Jack lets out a breath.

The machine clicks off.

Everything is white. It hurts his eyes when he opens them. His ears are ringing faintly underneath the sound of the building, that distant industrial hum that tells him that wherever he is, it’s a big place. A clock ticks on the wall.

His body feels as if it’s encased in cement, as if he’s been sleeping without moving for years. He blinks— _laughter, someone screaming, a snatch of music_ —and then shifts his leg. His muscles ache. His face is made of clay again.

He’s in a hospital. He tries to reach up and touch his face but his hands jerk short in their soft restraints.

Something flashes in his memory—a burst of white powder, Crane’s laugh, a darkened study—and he flinches. Somewhere, a woman’s voice is begging him to run.

He tosses his head to shake the memories away. A footstep scrapes in the doorway and he turns towards it.

Rachel stands there, looking awkward. Her face warms when she sees that he’s awake but there’s still something jagged in it, as if she doesn’t know exactly how he’s going to react to her.

“Hi,” she says. As if she’s come to some sort of decision, she steps into the room.

“Rachel,” he says, his voice hoarse. He licks his lips. Rachel automatically reaches for the pitcher of water and pours him a cup.

“How are you feeling?” She starts to hand the cup to him, then stops when she sees he’s restrained. Her expression goes uneasy, but then she raises her eyes to his and brings the cup to his lips. He drinks.

“What happened?” he asks when his mouth is wet.

She puts the cup back on the table and shrugs. “I don’t know. Jim said you had dinner at his place and then were watching television with him, and something upset you and you just went—you just panicked.”

Jack smiles, staring up at the ceiling. He remembers warm water splashing on his skin, Jim’s hands in his hair, bright green circling the shower drain. Jim must have thought he’d done something terrible to cover it up like that. Jack feels a laugh start to well up in his throat.

“I’m glad you’re doing better,” Rachel says, her eyes fixed on his smile. He notices suddenly that she’s wearing a cocktail dress and heels and clutching a tiny gold purse.

“Where are you going all dolled up?”

“It’s—” She gestures with the purse and lets out an embarrassed laugh. “Bruce Wayne’s birthday party. I wasn’t going to go but I changed my mind. Mostly just to piss off Finch. I’m sure it’s going to be terribly boring.” She frowns, then digs into her purse and pulls out a tiny bottle of breath freshener. She squirts some into her mouth.

 _‘It’s this,’ Crane says, holding up a spray bottle._

“Could you untie my hand?” Jack asks, tugging on his left hand and giving her an ingenuous smile. “My nose keeps itching and I can’t keep calling in the nurse to scratch it.”

Rachel looks down at the restraints, chewing on her lower lip. She glances over her shoulder towards the doorway.

“I’m not a _criminal_ ,” Jack says with a laugh. “I’m awake now. I’m not going to hurt myself. Could you just—?”

“Sure.” Rachel leans in and unbuckles the restraint. Jack reaches up and theatrically scratches his nose. She smiles.

“Be careful with yourself, Jack,” she says, looking down at him. “Maybe the job is getting too stressful. Talk to Finch about taking some time off.”

“It’s fine,” Jack snaps, then relents when he sees the unease return to her face. “I just—I think I need the distraction.”

“Sure.” She smiles at him. “See you tomorrow?”

“Wish him happy birthday for me.” Jack lets his hand drop onto the bed and watches her walk out of the room.

##

When the sun sets, Jack is back in the Narrows.

The makeup was easy to replace. The clothes were harder, but Jack found a nurse’s uniform in an unattended cupboard and the thought of wearing it made him laugh so he put it on. Escaping from the hospital was a breeze. The only thing he couldn’t get was a knife.

Things are still struggling at the edges of Jack’s vision, trying to get his attention, but he can ignore them with effort. He has more important things to focus on: a bat, a Crane, and a Falcone.

The only place he can think to start is Arkham Asylum. Crane’s office is there, and that’s where he has been transferring all of Falcone’s men before quietly releasing them back onto the streets. Crane had sprayed a white powder in Jack’s face, and it was white powder that was in those stuffed animals. Jack had assumed it was cocaine, but could it be something else? Something that drove people crazy? What could he possibly need that for?

A police siren wails and Jack ducks his head before remembering the makeup and the nurse’s outfit. He could be going to a Halloween party. No one will recognize him like this. _Want to see my mask?_ Crane whispers in his ear.

The police car screams down the street, followed quickly by two more. More sirens are rising in the distance. There is shouting coming from down the street and an excited buzz in the air.

Someone in Arkham reds darts down the center of the street. Jack turns to watch him go and two police officers come sprinting after him, bellowing for him to stop. As they turn a corner, a SWAT truck comes bouncing down the street.

Distantly, Jack hears the ding-ding-ding of a bridge drawing up, as if a boat is passing through the river. Further to the east, another bridge starts dinging. They’re closing all the bridges. What is going on?

Police on horseback clatter down the street, three abreast. “Go home,” one of them shouts to curious bystanders. “There’s been a breakout from Arkham. Everyone, go home.”

Jack retreats down a side street, out of sight of the police. Arkham is out of the question. That will keep the police distracted for a while, although if they’re looking for a crazy person, the guy in the clown makeup might be the place to start.

Fabric flaps over his head and he looks up sharply but it’s just laundry hanging on a clothesline. He brushes a hand over the cut in his cheek— _run, Jack_ —and smiles up at the laundry.

A cat hisses by Jack’s ankles. He looks down but it’s not a cat, it’s a sewer grate. Steam is curling up out of the grate.

Something makes a loud pop out in the street and then a manhole cover crashes back down to the street with a reverberating clang. Further down the street, the next manhole cover shoots into the air. Steam billows out after it.

Jack gets in a breath and starts to gag. The shapes and voices that had been on the edge of his vision suddenly crowd back to center stage. His mother is screaming in his ears and someone is laughing. Jack presses his palms to his ears and jerks away from the steam, running blindly down the street.

All of the moisture in the street is evaporating into the air. Rain puddles peel up off the ground in puffs of steam. The street ahead of him disappears into fog. Someone starts screaming down the street and he’s pretty sure it’s not in his head.

Jack slams into a wall and then hangs onto it, trying to get a grip on himself. His mother is sobbing to his left—no, his mother never had time to sob that night. It must be someone else. Someone is laughing, though, and he is beginning to suspect that it’s him. He puts a hand to his mouth and feels the smile on his face.

Drugs. He’s being drugged. Whatever it is, it’s in the steam here. Where is this steam coming from?

 _The microwave emitter._ The thought stops Jack dead. The stolen microwave emitter must be evaporating all the water. The drugs must have been dumped in the water supply. But the microwave emitter can’t have such range that it can evaporate all the water in the city from one place. Crane and Falcone must have figured out some way to make it…travel…

Jack looks up at the monorail tracks overhead, where they’re disappearing into steam. The monorail sits stopped on the tracks a hundred feet above him. He has to hurry.

##

The monorail station is empty. The stopped car is a hundred feet down the track. Below it, cables dangle down to a piece of machinery that is being slowly winched up to the tracks. Men in gas masks stand on the crossbeams of the struts, guiding it up.

Steam rises around him in streamers. Jack moves down the track as if he’s walking a tightrope, one foot in front of the other. The track is two feet wide but the drop on both sides makes his stomach swoop in interesting ways. He swallows laughter and glances down at the machinery. The men are climbing up the struts to the track.

Jack reaches the back of the monorail car and pries the doors open, climbing inside. The car is coated in graffiti and stinks of urine. He crouches in the back row of seats and peers out the window. The men have reached the track.

Keeping low, Jack moves to the door into the next car and slips inside. He hurries down the aisle between the seats, then pulls open the next door. At the end of the aisle, he can see into the front car, where the men are loading the machinery.

One man, the only one not wearing a ski mask, strides on board and nods once to his men. They file off the train without a word. He looks down at the machine, then in Jack’s direction.

“You’ll take care of this, then?”

“Yes.” A shadow peels itself away from the corner of the train on the other side of the glass from Jack. He freezes, his heart stopping in his throat. The man in the bat costume steps around the machinery, his cape swirling.

The blond man nods. “Happy birthday.” He steps off the train.

The man in the bat costume crosses to the other end of the train to the set of controls. The train lurches once, then pulls forward. They pick up speed.

Jack straightens up and pulls the door open, slipping through. He grips the knife in his pocket, holding his breath.

“I didn’t think you’d drown,” the man says to the controls.

Jack glances briefly into the shadows in the corners of the car, checking to see if there is anyone else the man could be talking to. Nope.

“Who are you?” he asks.

The man turns and studies him, his eyes going to the makeup on Jack’s face. “Good choice,” he says. “It’s better than the mask.”

Jack tosses his knife from hand to hand and looks out from underneath stringy green locks of hair. “You’re just another of Falcone’s lackeys.”

The man shows no reaction to the accusation. The microwave emitter hums on the floor between them and the streets below spew white steam into the air. Jack’s mother is whispering into his ear, _run Jack_ , and there’s a giggle building in Jack’s throat.

Jack’s eyes turn to the machine. There’s a control panel on the side but nothing clearly labeled as an off switch. Before he can even begin to formulate a plan, the man is vaulting over the machine at him. Jack jerks back and the two of them collide into the plexiglass window. His head bounces off the glass.

His own laughter startles him, but the bat man remains unflappable (hah), even when Jack punches him in the gut. Jack catches a glimpse of a scabbed-over gash under the man’s chin. The bat man pulls him away from the glass with two fists curled in Jack’s lapels.

“You can swim,” the man growls. “But can you fly?”

He slams Jack into the window again so hard that Jack can hear the plexiglass crack. His utility belt presses into Jack’s stomach. Jack grabs for it and yanks a tear gas canister from the belt. He rips the tab.

Smoke belches out of the can. Jack holds it up and the bat man lets go of him and takes a step back, bringing up a hand to his mouth and nose. Jack staggers away from the glass, his head throbbing. He tosses the can away, holding his breath, and pushes the bat man aside. The machinery is behind him, its center column spinning quickly and doing whatever it is that microwave emitters do. Emitting microwaves, probably. Jack takes his knife out of his pocket and wedges it into the gap where the column is spinning, forcing the blade in with all of his weight. The column grinds to a halt, trapped in place by the blade.

The bat man punches the window again and this time the plexiglass gives way completely. The suction of the open window pulls the tear gas out of the car. The man turns to Jack and grabs his shoulders, shoving him away from the machinery.

Jack realizes that he’s laughing again as he drops down into the row of seats, his arms up to protect his face from the bat man’s swinging fist. The fist hits him in the right forearm, numbing his hand to the wrist and shoving him onto his back. Jack grabs the bat man’s hand with both of his own, although his right hand doesn’t want to close properly. He yanks the bat man forward and plants his knee in the man’s gut, propelling him over Jack’s head to crash onto the seats.

The bat man turns it into a roll and comes at him again. The microwave emitter is beginning to whine, its engine cranking up with the stress of trying to spin. Smoke is coming out of the control panel. Jack slides off the seats and gets to his feet again, rearing back his fist for a powerful punch. The bat man ducks under it, digs a shoulder into Jack’s chest, and lifts him in the air to slam against the door of the train.

The air goes out of Jack, turning his laugh into a wheezing gasp. He plants his palms on the bat man’s shoulders and digs his thumbs in the joints of the man’s neck piece, trying to find the edge of the mask. Something zaps at him and his body goes rigid for a second, then relaxes. For a second, he sags in the bat man’s grip, still gasping.

The microwave emitter’s whining takes on a new desperation. The car is filled with the smell of burning plastic. If Jack knows action movies, this thing is going to explode, and he doesn’t quite have the energy to do anything about it.

The bat man reaches up over Jack’s head, fumbling for something. Jack reaches up with floppy arms and wraps his arms around the bat man’s neck, to hold on maybe, or just to touch the man and prove to himself that this is real, that Jack with the scarred face, Jack the lawyer, Jack the orphan, is wearing a clown costume and standing on a speeding monorail with a man in a bat suit and a malfunctioning microwave emitter that’s about to blow them all to bits.

The bat man finds what he was looking for, and the doors behind Jack open.

The two of them fall out together. Jack wraps his arms around the bat man’s neck and the bat man holds one arm tightly around Jack’s waist, his other arm out and rigid, the one bat’s wing rippling in the wind of their fall.

They land on top of a bus, crashing into the metal roof. Jack bounces, the bat man ripping free of his grasp. The bus slams on its brakes. He starts to slide off the edge of the roof and flails his arms, grabbing for anything within reach. A hand grabs his, arresting his fall. The bat man’s dark eyes meet his. The bus comes to a stop.

Above them, the monorail explodes like a supernova, sending a sheet of light down onto the street. For a second, the two of them are illuminated as if it’s daylight. Cars screech to a halt around them.

The bat man lets go of Jack’s hand. Jack slides over the edge of the bus and lands on his feet, then his butt. The traffic has stopped around them, faces peering up as powdered glass and bits of metal patter down like rain.

Jack gets to his feet, looking up. There is no one on the roof of the bus. The bat man is gone.

##

“Jack?”

Jack glances up from his newspaper. He’s sitting at a table outside a Starbucks. Finch hasn’t allowed him back to work yet—two weeks of mandatory sick time, then another psych eval before he can return—but Jack needs to get out of the house. Jim and Barbara have been driving him up the wall.

Rachel grins at him, dropping her purse into the chair across from his. “How are you doing?”

“Much better.” Jack smiles at her and then looks at the man behind her. He looks vaguely familiar.

Rachel turns to the man. “This is Bruce Wayne. Bruce, this is Jack Gordon. He works at the D.A.’s office with me.”

Now that she’s said his name, Jack recognizes him from the news. The man is preternaturally attractive and is wearing a very nicely tailored suit.

“It’s a pleasure,” Bruce says smoothly, leaning over the table and taking his hand. Jack grasps it and raises his eyes to meet Bruce’s.

The man’s eyes are dark and glittering, like a light shining down a long, dark tunnel. Time stops.

“Nice to meet you,” Jack says. Something tightens in Jack’s chest, and it feels like the beginning of a laugh.


End file.
